Defence Update

The RAAF is more than two years away from getting its first (of four) Boeing 707s modified for inflight refuelling. Although a decision on Airborne Early Warning and Control aircraft (AEW&C) has been foreshadowed, the actual acquisition can hardly be in place for quite a few years yet So we are reliant on the Americans for giving the Hornet squadrons occasional familiarisation with these invaluable assets in extending the range of fighters and in detection, identification and intercept procedures.

In KB, the Over the Horizon Radar test bed Jindalee station near Alice Springs, NT and other ground based radars will be used. The exercise should be invaluable in further trialling Jindalee because of the intention to expand it into a developed, operational network, with new stations in Queensland and Western Australia.

The RAAF plans to provide five F-111 strike jets and six P-3C Orion anti-submarine maritime reconnaissance planes. RAAF and USAF aircraft will mainly use the air bases at Darwin, Tindal and Derby for operations.

In formally announcing K89 in November, the Defence Minister, Mr Kim Beazley described it as “the most ambitious, wide ranging and significant exercise ever conducted in Australia”. The exercise area will take in the entire top end of Australia, stretching across more than 4,000 kilometres from the Pilbara region in the north west to Cape York Peninsula in the north east. This is a stretch of some 4,000 kilometres and is the equivalent of the distance between London and Moscow.

K89 is the first divisional exercise involving the Australian Army since the Second World War. “What makes Kangaroo 89 unique is that for the first time we are going to exercise the Australian Defence Force in accordance with the strategic and operational concepts identified in the 1987 Defence White Paper,” Mr Beazley said.

“The scenario of K89 is the defence of Australia against a range of credible (low threat) contingencies which could arise with little or no warning in Australia’s area of interest,” he added.

“The exercise will also provide an opportunity to test changes in the composition of the ADF and new command and control procedures. These include exercising the Joint, Maritime, Land and Air Headquarters as well as the newly established NORCOM (Northern Command), raised in July, 1988 in Darwin to command and control joint operations in the north. ”

Mr Beazley noted that US involvement would allow Australian servicemen to operate with equipment which is to come into ADF service, including the Blackhawk helicopters, air to air refuelling tankers and airborne early warning aircraft. There already is liaison with civil authorities at Federal, State and local government levels, particularly in the north. The military will also be using the civil infrastructure to a considerable extent.

The Chief of the Defence Force, General Peter Gration, outlined that 23,000 regular and reserve Australian Service personnel would be involved, including 7,000 Reservists. The US commitment will be about 1,800. “The greater part of the entire ADF, both regular and reserve, will be committed to some degree in the exercise,” General Gration said. “Kangaroo 89 will be a tangible demonstration that we have a dynamic and modern Defence Force which is rapidly coming to grips with the unique problems of northern defence as indicated in the Government’s White Paper,” he said. Beazley further sees K89 as essentially a test of Australia’s self reliance in defence and the interoperability of Australian and American forces. Defence commentators also see it as a major test in logistic support of forces in the north. There is the need to get the supplies to units in the north, and then sustain them.

Most of the Australian naval fleet will be deployed for the exercise, as will the RAAF as already detailed. The Army’s presence will come mainly from the 1st Division, including the 7th Brigade (Reserve) which is part of it. The 2nd Division (Reservists) will provide additional personnel for the under strength regular units (See following story on ADF’s high ‘wastage’ rates).

Canada has meanwhile been asked to provide umpires. Military observers have also been invited from most of the countries with whom Australia has close ties.

The ‘enemy’ is again labelled as Kamaria, a mythical country with ‘designs’ on Australian territory and resources. This totally fictional nation, for K89 purposes, is located to the north of north west lrian, and has other islands, Kea Lofa, Karu, Baykara and Ryland situated much closer to Australia’s northern coastline. The early period of the exercise from late July to early August will mainly cover the build up and long-range surveillance and intelligence activities. This will be followed by intensive naval and air manoeuvres of a protective nature. The main phase, with Australian and American forces engaged in repulsing ‘enemy’ assaults of Australian territory will take place in late August.

Cross Report Calls for a People First Policy for Adf

It is accepted logic in official Defence circles that the concentration on introducing new equipment to the Australian Defence Force is a necessary priority because of the long lead times involved in assessing and evaluating such equipment, deciding what is required and then bringing it into service. Few argue with this philosophy, but there is now a growing questioning about just how far the priorities favouring major Defence procurement programs should go.

The Defence Sub-Committee of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade reported on November 1O on its findings concerning its inquiry into Personnel Wastage in the 70,000 strong Australian Defence Force. And they were findings, which, although some issues have been surfacing occasionally for some time now, have given cause for considerable alarm among the Defence orientated community.

Thus we find that the Committee believes the crucial point is “that the lead time for acquiring operationally ready personnel can be just as long as that required to acquire capital equipment”.

In a nutshell, that seems a reasonable summation of the committee’s 500 page report. And there are a lot of findings and recommendations that surround and follow such a determination.

For example, the Cross Committee (headed by Brisbane Labor MP Mr Manfred Cross), was repeatedly told that an inadequacy of leadership by Ministers, and by other politicians, and the Federal Parliament generally, and by some senior Defence Department and military chiefs is a major cause of the disaffection of many who are serving or who have served in the ADF. Another major cause for the disaffection which has led to record resignation rates is what it considered an improper balance between equipment acquisition and facilities programmes, and manpower and operational costs. The latter are seen as too low on the totem pole.

In this issue of Australian Aviation we will, given its direction, concentrate on the Cross Committee’s views and recommendations as they concern the RAAF. But we should put the issues in some sort of perspective. For example the Committee’s judgment is that the ADF “remains a capable organisation staffed by many high quality individuals. ” It further says the ADF continues to attract praise for its performance in Allied exercises. “It operates high technology equipment with skill and, as demonstrated by the contingency preparations to evacuate Australians from Fiji in May 1987, can respond rapidly and effectively,” the report says. “Nevertheless the nation’s senior professional single Service m_ilitary leaders have all acknowledged that the current high· wastage rates have reduced capabilities. ” It says these judgments were confirmed by the Chief of the Defence Force, General Peter Gration, in evidence on March 14, 1988. The Committee also noted with interest the clear distinction drawn by General Gration at a subsequent public hearing between operational ‘effectiveness’ and ‘readiness’ with the ADF currently defined as being ‘effective’. The report says it is clear that under the existing organisational structure, capabilities would continue to diminish if wastage remained high. It says that its interpretation of the distinction drawn by General Gration is that in a period of intensive capital re-equipment, a particular level of overall Force personnel effectiveness was considered sufficient. “We respect that opinion as representing the ADF’s senior professiona. l judgment,” the Committee finds, but went on to suggest that the lead time in having operationally ready personnel could be just as long as that for major capital equipment. Earlier the Committee says it does not support the Department of Defence’s conclusion that wastage is a concern only in ‘some specific specialist areas’.

“Our assessment is that there is cause for concern across a wide range of ranks and skills. ” It lists these groups as: male trainees, male pension eligible, male pension ineligible, male officers, junior officers and project officers.

Specifically the problems of quantity or quality or both also apply to: Army Corporals and Senior NCOs, Navy officers, Commanders and below, Navy engineers, Navy principal warfare officers, Navy technical sailors, Navy submariners, Army officers, Major and below, Signal Corps officers, Army soldier specialist tradesmen, Air Force engineers, Air Force pilots, Air Force technical airmen and flight engineers.

Before proceeding, we should intersperse some statistical information. In the past five years the Navy, Army and Air Force have lost well over 40,000 personnel at annual rates which reached more than 13% in 1987/88 compared with 9% in 1983/ 84. The trend in this financial year is still mostly pointing upwards. The male officer resignation rate in 1983 was 6. 68%. In 1987/88 it had nearly doubled to 12. 03%. While the public emphasis has been on the losses of RAAF pilots mostly to commercial airlines paying vastly higher salaries and other attractive incentives, there are also serious losses in personnel with technical and other skills.

The Cross Committee notes that the extent and magnitude of the wastage in some of the groups it specified is such that it will adversely affect the ADF for at least the next decade. “It shows that retention strategies will have to be addressed at both the needs of the broader ADF and those specific specialist groups within the Force,” it says.

The report makes 48 recommendations which it says if vigorously and constructively addressed should enable the Government to reduce wastage to acceptable, more manageable levels. In the broad, they cover policy, leadership and morale; career satisfaction; the Service family and conditions of service. These also cover housing, education and postings.

Earlier in Defence Update we outlined what is planned for the big Kangaroo 1989 Defence exercise in north Australia. In a section concerning the ‘Dilution of Experience’ in the ADF caused by the high resignations, the Committee instances that it was told that even the Army’s front line 1st Division could not be shielded from the degradation of the core of experience, particularly at the junior officer/NCO/Private levels. “Most units in the Division have shortfalls of Captains; the exception is the Operational Deployment Force (DF), which receives priority,” it is noted. It outlined that almost 1,000 Corporals, a crucial rank in the Division, left after completing six years. .

The report says that excessive wastage (ie the high resignation rates) was costing the ADF a great deal of money for training. It costs $20,000 to train a Navy steward over a six year engagement, and about $2m to train an RMF pilot to operational standard. “Given that in the past three financial years 159 more pilots than the long-term average (47) have separated, that category alone has cost the Services in the order of $318m to train replacements,” it says.

Pilot resignations remain a major problem for the RMF but there also are particular problems existing in specialised technical areas in which the absence of lateral recruiting and the long lead time needed to train a replacement hinders short-term solution. The RMF considers that the current separation rate is increasing, and “is too high because it is exceeding our capacity to replace losses with trained personnel”. The wastage rate for RMF male officers and officer cadets was 6. 9% in 1982/83 and in 1987/88 reached 12. 4%. Specialist RAAF areas with shortages of manpower and experience were in the following branches in early 1988: Air Traffic Control, Administration, Ground Defence, Intelligence, Legal, Air Defence, Supply, and Medical (Doctors only).

The Air Force is perhaps the most technical of the three Services, according to the Cross Committee. Thus high wastage rates amongst skilled technicians carry a long-term penalty as long lead times are involved in training replacements. The categories most affected are engineers, engineering specialists and pilots.

The wastage of RAAF engineers in 1987/88 of more than 80 should be measured against a long-term average of 56 annually. Against a long-term average annual loss of 47, 70 pilots left the RMF in 1985/86, 107 in 1986/87 and 123 in 1987/88. In the first six weeks of 1988/89 42 pilots notified their intention to resign. The Committee found this “startling”. It noted: “Given that the number of pilots graduating is only between 55 and 65 annually, a serious loss of experience already exists and is likely to worsen. ”

The report says that the problem is exacerbated by the number of specialist pilots who are among those leaving. They include Qualified Flying Instructors (QFls), Test Pilots and Fighter Combat Instructors. The Committee was advised that in 12 months from April, 1987 to March, 1988, 13 of 26 instructors at the RAAF’s Advanced Flying Training School resigned.

In April, 1988 the Air Force, overall, had a strength of 747 pilots against 918 established posts, leaving a shortfall of 171. By June the vacancies had increased to 182, including 39 Wing Commanders and 73 Squadron Leaders. (refer Newsdesk)

The report also noted that according to the Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Ray Funnell, the level of pilot resignations had reduced the RAAF’s overall effectiveness. “For example flying hours have been cut back, experience levels have. decreased and the number of pilots in fighter squadrons flying the F-18 Hornet has been reduced from 18 per squadron to 12. ” The F-111 strike wing at Amberley had only 16 crews against a normal establishment of 24. The committee says that although figures show that at present there are sufficient pilots to maintain flying operations at the current reduced level, recent losses have had a major impact on experience levels and staff positions requiring pilot expertise.

Evidence was given by the Acting Director of Air Force Safety to the Defence Force Remuneration Tribunal that the RAAF accident rate had increased in the past 12 months, especially over the 6 months which was the worst introduction of a year for 20 years and that inexperience was a major factor in these particular aircraft accidents.

The Committee heard evidence that in 1987/88 a projected 559 technical airmen would leave the RAAF as against 274 in 1983/84. It concluded that the high wastage of RAAF technical tradesmen and women was costing the ADF at least $21. 7m more in real terms in 1987/88 than four years earlier.

The report makes compelling reading and quotes a long list of authorities. The burning question is what more can be done about it short of wringing the hands and wailing about this gross misfortune!